Saturday, January 30, 2010

1
Last night I watched you undo what you had done a few hours before, wiping with a warm wet towel that face that you had applied to the surface of your own. You splashed water on your clean skin, dried yourself with a second towel, and looking to me said, “I’m back.”

2
The room is dark when I awaken. You are still sleeping. I move to your chair and take your seat. I ask my thoughts to give me a moment without closing in. What happens when you take this seat? Give me the name of the man who sits at this table, selects from these danglers, knows red from cinnabar, and who turns to me some moments later declaring “I’m ready.”

3
I said to you the word “can’t” as in you can’t have that sixteenth pair of boots. I said that your last pair had taken the last space and I heard the nighttime in this curtain-less room echoing back, bringing me a rider that mocked me telling me that space was plentiful. The tightness came from a different source.

4
I am driven to ask for the root of resistance, and in this beginning the exposure of the nets of thought that cast tangles over this moment. Small canisters of powder, blue dust, oils and ointments, black pencils seen by truer measure were only clasps on small doors that led into dusty chambers long asking for air and light.

5
I remember my promises: to believe in passages and learning, in the power of honesty to lead toward exponential weightlessness, in the chance to see to the limits of light, in the benefit of borders unfettered. Let me be by your side when you walk streets in heels, awaken through the slapping of second takes, hold my gaze when you ask with your eyes.

6
This morning, you may begin by wiping your face clean of sleep, by moisturizing, by hearing her voice ask you simple questions. She wants what each of us wants, to be among us, to be held, to be left alone, to dance when the music comes, to walk head up under open sky.

About these Poems

I was once driving in Sonoma and saw a series of fence posts that marked a field. The fence between these posts had long before fallen, but the posts remained to delineate a rancher's field. These poems likewise delineate a place, often unremarkable, where souls exist. By marking out a place that might otherwise go unnoticed, I want to draw attention to what is everywhere and all around us. I'm glad you stopped here. Thanks for reading and commenting on what you find. . .
Greg John